BCCI marketing meet sets base price at Rs. 2 cr/match

The BCCI marketing committee meeting, chaired by its president N. Srinivasan, has decided to set the base price of buying rights for India's home fixtures at Rs. 2 crore per match (Tests/ODIs/Twenty20 Internationals) for a period of six months.

Dr. Farooq Abdullah, who is the head of the marketing committee, could not attend the meeting due to political commitments and president-in-exile N. Srinivasan chaired the meeting as this was not a "day to day affair".

"Mr Srinivasan chaired the marketing committee meeting where we decided that the base price for buying the rights of India's international matches at home will be Rs. 2 crore per match," a member of the marketing committee told PTI over phone from Mumbai.

This time the marketing committee has decided that they are ready to give rights of buying three formats to separate corporates if they bid the highest price. "Last time, Airtel won the rights paying Rs. 3.33 crore per international match across three formats. This time it will be different. For example, if company A bids Rs. 4 crore for a Test and company B bids for 5 crore for a T20, they would be separately given the rights of Tests and T20's respectively," the official added.

The BCCI members also took the current economic slowdown in the country into account while discussing the span of contract period. "We had to take into account the recession factor also. The members were in full agreement with the president (Srinivasan) that the span of the buying title rights for home series be kept to six months. We are expecting that markets will see an upswing once the general elections are over," the official added.